Let's bitch about our stupid, annoying co-workers

guy: (laughs aloud)

office: *no one says anything*

guy: (laughs louder)

office: *for god's sake don't ask him what he's laughing at*

guy: HA! HA! THAT'S GOOD STUFF!

office: *crickets*

guy: (sigh)

hahaha

I said, HAHAHA!

My old boss used to do that! She'd laugh in her office, or make little "Oh no!!!" type exclamations in the hope someone would ask her what she was on about. My coworkers and I would intentionally refuse to entertain such behavior and see how long it would take her to just come out and tell us whatever she was hoping we would ask her about.

"pay attention to me" passive-aggression is worse than "I'm mad at you" passive-aggression

There's probably one in every office.

why the hell specify how sick you are, just say you are sick

― mh, Tuesday, October 29, 2013 1:13 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark

I don't know if I've ever worked in a place where you didn't have to make a case for being too sick to come in.

if they want to know if I'm actually sick they can require me to get documentation from a doctor

― mh, Tuesday, October 29, 2013 1:14 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark

At the last restaurant where I worked management sometimes required doctors' notes b/c they knew we'd come to work - sick or not - rather than endure the expense and hassle of going to a doctor. Especially bad since like most restaurant workers, we didn't health insurance.

my workplace is especially humanitarian when it comes to such things, I guess

generally if you're sick and feel you're going to be working at a diminished capacity they should realize it's worth staying home because:
- one day of rest means shorter duration of illness
- coming to work means you'll infect other people

if it's a deadline time or something needs done IMMEDIATELY then it's an issue, but otherwise, fuck their shoddy business practices

although, take it with a grain of salt, because I'm the guy who thought he had a weak cold for two weeks one time and then later determined I had ultra-strep

It's just that I work for a big law firm and they don't care. I mean, they care on an individual level but institutionally, there's too much pressure to get things done.

Re. former moaning about sniffling, I work in a library, no one will die if a member of staff takes the day off.

why the hell specify how sick you are, just say you are sick

― mh, Tuesday, October 29, 2013 3:13 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. employers in FL aren't even allowed to ask why, and nobody needs to know that you have explosive diarrhea or that you are carrying the bubonic plague.

I've only had one boss in my 9 years at this place who sounded skeptical of my illness. Terrible boss. I had a sinusitis related migraine and he bullied me into coming in mid-day.

should have just told him you had explosive diarrhea

it works every time

"upset stomach" works every time, whether that be explosive diarrhoea or (just hypothetically speaking) a terrible hangover, or even both

"Explosive diarrhoea, it works every time. So you don't have to."
http://bfcgroup.com/helluvatough/billydeesign.jpg

i have no guilt at taking time off work with a cold* because a) i (usually) picked up that cold at work (so much coughing) and b) the unpaid overtime the rest of the year. and colds are debilitating whether it's the inability to breathe properly, the aching or the lost sleep. i wouldn't be up to much in the office so why risk spreading it?

(* twice this year, 3 days each time)

important update: no let-up in the snuffling.

There are other reasons why someone may need time off work sick than colds/flu, guh.

Don't think anyone has suggested otherwise?

Not a co-worker, really, but the lady that cleans our office while super nice, has been coming increasingly earlier and earlier to clean our suite. The past two weeks she's started showing up at 4:45 (we remain pretty generally well-staffed until about 5:30), so it's become a game of dodging her huge cart while trying to maneuver around the office and her interrupting phone calls to get our garbage cans. Normally it's not a huge thing at all, but we've had a bunch of deadlines lately and things have been super tense, making it really annoying.

OH I wasnt having a go at you Neil! Just a general sigh at the idea people always assume you have a wimpy cold if yr off sick.

signed, someone who suffers from embarrassingly painful female issues that no one ever accepts as a reason to be sick.

"pay attention to me" passive-aggression is worse than "I'm mad at you" passive-aggression

my office is in a real flux at the moment, moving premises, people's jobs on the line, it's a bad enough vibe, but i swear i have one coworker who has kinda flipped the lid a bit, just like, when someone decides to run themselves down all the time in that jokey british kind of way, but actually it results in either pretending to be annoyed at an innocuous joke someone makes, or talking incessantly about problems, or private issues, or referencing her pma daily like it's a person who we are all familiar with and someone who sits in the office.

it's enough to make you steal the character for a play except it prob wouldn't be believable. she also has this cat that she got when her fiancee walked out on her, and the poor thing is the sickest cat in the world, it's like fate brought the two together, every day there's a story of it vomiting on her and her cancelling a holiday to look after millstone the cat.

it really makes me think about our natural tendency towards masochism.

ha

probably calling it "millstone" was a bad idea to begin with

"millstone the cat" made me LOL

Staying late at work. Thought the sysadmin would stop talking/singing to himself once I walked past his desk and he knew he wasn't the only one in the building.

Nope... still talking. Talking quite loudly, asking himself questions theatrically.

(crams headphones in, watches clock, plans exit)

i work from home and sometimes my roommate has loud sex. I'm terrified of one of the days this might happen while the phone is not on mute.

I talk to myself at my desk all day long :/ I'm That Person. LOL.

the other day, I still hadn't received information that I very much needed, so I sent an email follow-up stressing the urgency (the language was probably a bit more dramatic than I had planned, as I was without my meds that day). I opted to leave the project manager off because I wanted to talk to one of our tech guys first to see if it was something simple to solve, and figured I'd forward it to him if I didn't have a satisfactory reply by noon.

Someone else on the email decides to forward it to the project manager. Project manager blows up my spot on a conference call for not looping him in, and letting someone else forward it. I can't remember the last time I was that angry at someone. Had to explain to the PM why I'd left him off. Was going to give a sternly worded follow-up to the person who forwarded the message, but decided it's not worth it, as in three months she'll be off the project anyway.

i work with an older american hispanic guy, who is reasonably nice and quite good at what he does and professionally we work well together. we have a client that exports furniture material to rwanda and uganda for manufacture. he is from uganda. today, my coworker pretended to be a southern american plantation owner and told our client, "be quiet, the white man is talking" in a poor southern accent. he also insists that our ugandan client is a muslim and derides his nonexistent refusal to eat pork and frequently makes reference to the september 11th terrorist attacks.

also, he is married. when i come in on monday and he asks me about my weekend, i try to be lowkey and sketch out some details. but he invariably steers our chat toward sexual topics and directly asks if i "got any pussy" or took any girls home. in the same vein, he likes to tell me stories about times when he almost cheated on his wife but stopped himself. he frequently tells stories from his younger days or whatever and they always start with him taking mescaline and end with him having sex.

That man is a gross racist.

i'm definitely getting that vibe, yeah.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH STOP IT, NNGNNNGNGNNGNGNHGHGHHGHHGHHGHGH

stop calling me "brother," Tim! it's not entertaining

I should get all evangelical here on the office and see what happens.

"Brother Holcott, do you have any extra P-20 templates?"

Listening to someone I've probably mentioned on this thread before giving "induction information" to a new guy.

"this one guy from another department - the department used to be called something different - bob and frank and steve used to be head of the department but now it's frank and ben - ben's all right, he bought me a drink once - and bob, he works for department z instead now - department z are at [address] after they moved and changed their name in 1989..." (continues for 6 hours)

"well that one guy said [extended description of clearly noncommittal statements] so i know for a FACT he is very interested in what we're doing here" (continues for several more hours of delusional self-aggrandisement)

NOBODY NEEDS TO HEAR THIS ON THEIR FIRST DAY.

ok, i like this guy a lot, it was a jokey convo over email, and he might be kidding, but:

"What is the male version of an ‘heiress’? I’d like to be that."

heirloom iirc

heiry.

heir bud

There's an older staffer in my office who has been there so long and is such an institution that she kind of forgets we actually do work sometimes. I mean she's perfectly competent, but she mostly doesn't give a fuck when she doesn't have to, which, you know, fine, probably the right attitude to have at that point.

Anyway, the other day I'm on a call with a partner, on speaker, but I have my door open, so she walks into my office. So I make the "I'm in the middle of something important" wave-off gesture. She ignores it, and just sits down in the chair on the other side of my desk. This is an important call about a time-sensitive thing going on. So I keep talking to him, and it goes on a few more minutes, and she starts smirking and making the "Get on with it" hand gesture. I'd say as much as ten minutes go by, finally I'm off the call. What does she want? FOR ME TO PICK A NAME OUT OF A HAT FOR SECRET SANTA

facepalm

had a mediocre year-end review, but the feedback was very constructive. all well and good, but I am thinking the feedback was from the person who is meant to be coaching my team, so why was this feedback not delivered in a more timely manner than the year end? irritating.

Same lady just did it to me again. This time I was obviously on the cell phone (with my wife about our sick toddler, as it happened) and she just barges in and goes "Haha did you see that e-mail?!" She was wearing a green sweater and a red jacket and a santa hat (because today was the office holiday thing). I have worked the entire weekend two weeks straight and gotten no more than five hours of sleep a night for over two weeks, I have so little patience for this shit right now.

We got an email today feeling everyone out about Santa Claus visiting the office. Would we bring our children up? Maybe our pets?

I didn't respond, but no, I'm trying to wrap up two weeks worth of work in two days. Monday and Tuesday could be my busiest days of the year. I'm not complaining, I'm working hard because my company is gracious enough to give everyone a complimentary week off between 12/25 and 1/2. But no, I will not have time to go drive to the kids' daycare, pick them up, bring them back to the office to visit this Santa man, take them back to daycare, finish my work and go home before the real Santa appears. Thanks anyway.